Fabrics by Venus Williams’ Design Firm, V Starr, and Wolf-Gordon Find Strength in Femininity

By Jesse Dor­ris for Sur­face Magazine

The ancient mus­es presided over the realm of imag­i­na­tion, offer­ing cre­ativ­i­ty when called upon. Mod­ern mus­es take cre­ativ­i­ty into their own hands: Ten­nis great Venus Williams, for exam­ple, found­ed her V Starr inte­ri­or design firm to cre­ate worlds she want­ed to see. An ongo­ing part­ner­ship with Wolf-Gor­don now offers V Starr’s first prod­uct design col­lab­o­ra­tion, the uphol­stery col­lec­tion Muse. ​“It was such a plea­sure to cre­ate this col­lec­tion,” Williams says. ​“I’m so hap­py and proud of the pat­terns and col­ors we designed.” 

Three styles find strength in fem­i­nin­i­ty and pay trib­ute to rous­ing women. The high-per­form­ing Ora, named for Williams’ moth­er Oracene, weaves recy­cled poly­ester yarns in grad­u­at­ed shades of twist­ing helix­es. The poly­ester-acrylic-nylon Fri­da, mean­while, is an art­ful can­vas of hor­i­zon­tal brush­strokes of black and white across bold expans­es of sol­id col­or. And col­lec­tion hero Ele­na shows off danc­ing fig­ures radi­at­ing with joy, in post-con­sumer, beach clean­able poly­ester mate­lassé. Col­or­ways ref­er­ence V Starr’s home in South Flori­da, with ranges of neu­trals, blush­es, and jew­el tones. Their names put col­lec­tiv­i­ty front and cen­ter: Elena’s quar­tet of shades, for exam­ple, include graph­ic Pan­tHER, cool Alabas­tHER, peachy BlUSh, and ver­dant JunipHER, while Frida’s nine add in sun­ny LionUS and blue-tone AtmUSphere.

“Venus Williams is the ulti­mate exam­ple of female strength, not only due to her ath­let­ic prowess but also for her per­son­al char­ac­ter and integri­ty,” says Wolf-Gor­don COO Mary­beth Shaw. ​“We’re very proud to have col­lab­o­rat­ed with Venus and her team at V Starr.” You might even say they’ve been inspired.